Do I need to be in shape for this?

Starting in late April I had decided that I'd need to be in the best shape of my young life if I were to pull this thing off. Of course, I didn't really do anything about it until the beginning of May. Since then I've been on some workout regimen or another. Early on I was focused on cardio-vascular training, trying to make my breathing more efficient to prepare for the very thin air and high physical demands of ascending a 14er (for some reason the climbing community has singled out peaks over 14,000 with this brilliant bit of nomenclature. I'm not exactly sure why those chose that particular elevation, though if it is originally an American aphorism I'm sure it's due to the fact that the highest peak we have in the lower 48 [Mt. Whitney, CA] is a 14er [60 some odd feet higher than Mt. Rainier, I've heard it's a much easier climb]).

So, the focus was on cardio and running in particular. I'd do a half hour of running outside in the morning and try to sneak in at least one other workout in the day. I'd supplement this with weekend hikes, though a Memorial Day weekend trip through Appalachians almost ended my summit attempt all together; longer than expected mileage and some serious ups and downs left me with an overuse injury in my right knee. After babying it for a week or two I realized it wasn't getting better and sought medical attention. Inflamed cratiledge was the culprit, and the only way to fix it was to strengthen my legs without using the knees full range of motion. So modified weight training began, trying to strengthen all the muscles that held my knee cap in place and stay in shape while maintaining a low impact. I turned to riding a stationary bike and treading water (an excellent workout if you hold off boredom in the pool for 30+ minutes).

I also decided to join a climbing gym, I'd gone before with Schild and thought that getting more experience with climbing and ropes would be a plus, though from what I understood there wouldn't be any "technical" climbing on Rainier. It turned out that while most of the safety I learned at Sport Rock didn't really come into play, the climbing itself was a great strength and balance training device and upper body workout to balance the rest of my lower body regimen.

After a few weeks of this, my knee felt almost back to normal. I started heading out to Great Falls park in McLean to build up my leg muscles on the trails there, carrying heavier and heavier packs. More weekend trips included Sleeping Giant in CT and an ill fated Presidential Traverse (hitting all the peaks in the White Mts. of NH named for Presidents). The NH trip was only several weeks before we were scheduled to leave, and we thought it would be the true test to see if we were up to Rainier, since the hiking through the White Mountains is generally considered to be the most demanding hike on this side of country. Bad weather, injuries and hypothermia turned us away from our intended route, however; we decided to bug out after the first 2 peaks when Matt suffered an unexplainable knee injury and another of our party succumbed to hypothermia from the driving rain and low temperatures. On the way down, bad turned to worse, as the unknown route we decided on down the mountain turned into some of the most treacherous terrain we'd ever seen, from traversing wet bolder fields to sliding down exposed rock on steep switch backs. The trail name should have given it away ("Six Husbands" I'm fairly certain it wasn't named for a female bigamist) but we pressed on, hoping to find something flat to camp on. Luckily we got off the mountain before dark but still had to press on until midnight in order to find a place to camp. All in all the experience was a good one in the end -- while harrowing and dangerous, we came out on top and learned a lot of good lessons.

My knee held up throughout this so I decided it was time to get serious about climbing with real weight and so started a regimen of stair climbing (the 19 floors of my building) with 40 lbs in my pack. I figured out that 6 trips to the top was 1,000 ft, so I started there and worked my way up to 12. This turned out to be an all around great workout and I really credit it for keeping me going on the mountain.